Why military vets are great for startups

Think Big — Bias for Action — Add to the Culture

Bottom line up front:

• Veterans — A startup is a great place to take advantage of your skills, training, and experience. You can excel at a startup.
• Hiring managers — Vets are an untapped and under-appreciated pool of extreme drive and talent. Seek them out for upcoming roles. You’ll be glad you did.

Start ups are hard and hiring into what can be a chaotic and fast-moving environment is not easy. There are three key areas where veterans are uniquely equipped to take their experiences and skills from the military and transition into a career at a startup.

Vets think big

Vets want to, and know how to, tackle big challenges. It starts with a service academy, boot camp or officer candidate school. Hell, it even starts before that when a person makes the decision to start down the path of joining the military. They don’t do it for the money or fame, they do it because they want to do big things and be a part of a team that makes a difference.

Not only do vets think big, they know how to lead teams that are tasked with often insurmountable challenges. Any you know what? They get the job done. No other people have as extensive experience in small unit leadership as vets. This translates extremely well to day-to-day startup execution.

The path from an initial plan to final execution rarely happens exactly as planned. Vets have a unique perspective in that they are well-suited to “pivots”. Many civilians may not understand this, but a military mission is not as simple as an officer giving an order and then everything falling into place and the mission ending a success. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” is a common refrain in the military and vets have extensive experience at taking their commander’s intent and adjusting the plan as needed to meet changing situations on the ground (or in the air or water) while still working towards the ultimate mission.

Part of thinking big is also having the vision to help build something big. Start up leaders regularly develop new roles and teams as the company grows. Vets are well-suited to step right into these new positions as they have a growth mindset and experience tackling big challenges that often involve situations with imperfect or incomplete information.

Vets has a bias for action

Both vets and startup employees have a strong sense of intrinsic motivation; both are used to being underpaid and overworked. Not that it’s okay, but both groups know they score when they sign up. Both know that you can’t easily (or at all) give pay raises or promotions to high performers and there is a need to manage these kinds of teams differently. Simply put, both are used to doing things they don’t necessarily like or want to do. But they do it. Well.

Vets have unique experience balancing professionalism with scrappiness; they can walk the line between structure and improvisation. One moment they may be standing at standing at the position of attention, fire off a crisp salute, and about face with a sharp “Yes, Ma’am”. After the shooting has started five minutes later they are taking their given orders, exercising their understanding of the commander’s intent, and and executing the contingency plan and improvising to keep moving forward with the mission. Vets aren’t afraid to pivot and change a course of action.

Finally, you may think that vets only perform well in a very structured and rule-focused environment. There isn’t a lot of structure in most startups, right, so how could a vet fit in there? Transitioning from rule following (military) to no rule following (most startups) can be a struggle. But vets have learned (for better or worse) from their time in the service how to break/stretch the rules and that parallel serves them well in the wild world of startups.

Vets will add to the culture

Everyone in the military, no matter the branch, starts operating in small units. It starts with a fire team (4) or squad (13) sized unit, and grows from there. Vets have been in tough situations with small teams and know the importance of team cohesion and esprit de corp. Even more, they know that in a small group, teammates are always watching your every move and that a strong culture comes from pulling your own weight, supporting others in tough situations, and not asking others to do things you wouldn’t do yourself.

Having served with a diverse group of teammates and been stationed in countries across the world, vets bring a different perspective and can add greatly to company culture.

A final similarity is that it’s hard to leave your job at the end of the day when come home from a startup — same with military. Both groups know what it’s like to have a demanding job that doesn’t stop at 5pm.

Moving forward

I like working with people who have a strong passion, bring that with them every day, and use that to help set their sights on big challenges. Military veterans have a demonstrated history of bringing all three of these with them to every challenge the encounter.

Jon spent 10 years as an officer and pilot in the Marine Corps. He is now the Senior Vice President of Operations at Volta Charging.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.